Society of Public Universities

Categories / Science. Education/Learned Societies
SOCIETY OF PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES, St. Petersburg, founded in 1906 by a group of scientists and public figures in order to render assistance to working people in receiving regular education. The society numbered about 1,200 people by 1910 with Count I. I. Tolstoy, V. M. Bekhterev and A. A. Dril, et al. as members of the board. It had a number of commissions including for natural history, medicine, literature, social and legal sciences, physics and mathematics, practical linguistics, music, theatre, and publishing, as well as a commission for excursions established in 1909. The secretariat was situated at 16 Gagarinskaya Street until it moved to 123 Zabalkansky Avenue (today, Moskovsky Avenue) in 1911. The society arranged series of lectures on natural science, medicine, history and culture, literature, social and legal sciences, and philosophy. It also had a public conservatory and literacy school and held courses in modern languages, general education, dramatic reading, theatre, commerce and accounting, shorthand, sanitation and disinfection, etc. Up to 550 lectures were given per year attended by over 40,000 students. The teaching staff included scientists, artists, and musicians of St. Petersburg. Classes were held in the House of Municipal Institutions at 55 Sadovaya Street, Tenishev School at 33 Mokhovaya Street, People's Houses, etc. There were over 25 lecture rooms, some of which were even located in industrial outskirts. The society published a journal, Vestnik Narodnykh Universitetov in 1910-11. It was dissolved after October 1917.

O. N. Ansberg. Bekhterev Vladimir Mikhailovich
Dril Dmitry Andreevich
Tolstoy Ivan Ivanovich
Gagarinskaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 16
Mokhovaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 33
Moskovsky Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 123
Sadovaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 55
Tenishev's School
Municipal Institutions Buildings (entry)
People's Houses (entry)